Wen Jiabao (right) brings with him one of the largest teams of Chinese business leaders ever to visit India Indian and Chinese companies have signed business deals worth $16bn (£10.2bn) on the opening day of Chinese PM Wen Jiabao’s three-day official visit to India.
The latest of a number of world leaders to visit India, Mr Wen is accompanied by some 400 Chinese business leaders.
China is India’s largest trading partner – two-way trade volumes are set to hit $60bn (£38bn) this fiscal year.
Mr Wen is due to meet Indian PM Manmohan Singh on Thursday.
Indian and Chinese companies signed some 50 deals in power, telecommunications, steel, wind energy, food and marine products worth $16bn at the end of a business conference attended by Mr Wen in the capital, Delhi, on Wednesday evening.
This overtakes the $10bn of business agreements signed between Indian and American businessman during the recent visit of US President Barack Obama to India.
“There is enough space in the world for the development of both China and India and there are enough areas for us to cooperate,” Mr Wen told the business conference.
Mr Wen – who last visited India five years ago – brings with him one of the largest teams of Chinese business leaders ever to visit India.
The Chinese delegation dwarfs the number of trade chiefs led in recent weeks to India by US President Barack Obama (215), French President Nicolas Sarkozy (more than 60) and British Prime Minister David Cameron (about 40).
The Chinese premier will hold talks later on Thursday with his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh, External Affairs Minister SM Krishna and the ruling Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi.
Later this week, Mr Wen will travel to India’s nuclear-armed neighbouring rival, Pakistan, for a two-day official visit.
Though bilateral trade with China is booming, the relationship is not benefiting India as much as it might, say analysts.
Delhi has been demanding greater access to Chinese pharmaceutical and IT markets as it seeks to level a large trade surplus in China’s favour of up to £25bn.
China’s envoy to India, Zhang Yan, told reporters ahead of Mr Wen’s visit: “Relations are very fragile, very easy to be damaged and very difficult to repair. Therefore they need special care in the information age.”
Ties between the two countries were tested in August when India cancelled defence exchanges after China refused a visa to a Kashmir-based general.
Last year, India protested against the Chinese practice of issuing visas to people from Indian-administered Kashmir on separate pieces of paper, unlike the standard visas it offered to other Indians. China gave no explanation for the move.
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